On Thursday, the House Intelligence Committee approved a spending bill to fund the National Security Agency and other intelligence organizations. Included in the bill is a provision that would set aside $75 million for the NSA to improve its internal security and mitigate insider threats to classified material. In other words, the bill seeks to prevent future Edward Snowdens.

Earlier this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee advanced its own bill authorizing funding for the NSA and its surveillance programs. The bill also provides additional money for countering insider threats, but it includes protections for "legitimate" whistle blowers, the Hill's Brendan Sasso reported.

The NSA had previously deployed security software that was intended to prevent insider threats, according to an October Reuters report. However, the software, purchased from Raytheon, was allegedly not installed at the Hawaii station Snowden worked at due to the limitations of the station's network connection back to the continental US.

What exactly does the Senate Intelligence Committee define as "legitimate" whistle-blowers?

From the Senate's bill:"Any employee of an agency who has authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action, shall not, with respect to such authority, take or fail to take a personnel action with respect to any employee of an intelligence community element as a reprisal for a disclosure of information by the employee to the Director of National Intelligence (or an employee designated by the Director of National Intelligence for such purpose), the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, the head of the employing agency (or an employee designated by the head of that for such purpose), the appropriate inspector general of the employing agency, a congressional intelligence committee, or a member of a congressional intelligence committee, which the employee reasonably believes evidences (1) a violation of any law, rule, or regulation; (2) mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety. "

So, in other words, a "legitimtate" whistleblower is someone who talks to a designated person in government or congress, not to a reporter.

Oxymoron. Parts of the US government, like the NSA have become the inside threat. They're turning into the very thing they started to fight. Not only to US citizens, but the rest of us in the world as well.

What exactly does the Senate Intelligence Committee define as "legitimate" whistle-blowers?

From the Senate's bill:"Any employee of an agency who has authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action, shall not, with respect to such authority, take or fail to take a personnel action with respect to any employee of an intelligence community element as a reprisal for a disclosure of information by the employee to the Director of National Intelligence (or an employee designated by the Director of National Intelligence for such purpose), the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, the head of the employing agency (or an employee designated by the head of that for such purpose), the appropriate inspector general of the employing agency, a congressional intelligence committee, or a member of a congressional intelligence committee, which the employee reasonably believes evidences (1) a violation of any law, rule, or regulation; (2) mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety. "

So, in other words, a "legitimtate" whistleblower is someone who talks to a designated person in government or congress, not to a reporter.

Weird, so are we to assume these checks and balances weren't already in place? I recall Snowden stating one of his reasons to leak the material the way he did is because no one he was supposed to report the ethics violations to would or could do anything about it. Does this provision fix that somehow?

Yes, in this time of the ever mounting debt crisis, lets give the NSA MORE money, and take away funding from education, science research, NASA, etc. You know, organizations that actually benefit the country.

Wait, let me get this straight. The NSA massively oversteps its authority, creates an international scandal, costs American technology companies billions in lost revenue, causes a major loss of American diplomatic power, invites a congressional inquiry, and their budget is... *increased*? By *both* houses of congress? A congress that can't even agree that the sky is blue under ordinary circumstances? WTF??

Let's remember that the scandal is not about the leak. The scandal is about what the leak revealed about what the NSA was doing. How about the NSA shut down their unconstitutional surveillance, and use the money they save to improve security?

"Protections for 'legitimate' whistle blowers?" WTF? I thought there were already "protections for 'legitimate' whistle blowers." If an amendment to existing legislation such as this is necessary, does it mean that adequate protections didn't exist beforehand, and if that is so does it not follow that Snowden did the right thing by side-stepping the existing process and going directly to the press? And, if such additional "'protections' for whistle blowers" needed to be added to the process, doesn't that indicate that what Snowden did was not criminal in nature but done out of necessity as it was the only means left to help preserve our Constitutional democracy?

I know that the U.S. Attorney General's office has charged and will charge Snowden with every possible crime, no matter how large or small, in order to justify his prosecution and send a clear signal to all future "whistle blowers" that they'll be prosecuted severely for even the most minor of infractions, even if the law was or is being broken or the Constitution was or is being abrogated.

"You shall know them by their actions" is a quote I've heard many times before, and the severe prosecution of Snowden is a sign that the surveillance state will not go quietly into the night.

There's a document that already gives The People the power to do something about it.

Symbolically, at least.

Unfortunately, the powers-that-be have progressively rigged the game such that we're stuck with our intrenched two-party political system, out-of-date election process, and byzantine collection of contradictory laws. Claiming that any of that can now be changed is like saying we can revise our tax code.

I love the priorities governments these days have. Science? Progress? Screw that, we need to spy on some more on the plebian masses! We also need to get more recruits to our armies and then send them to various places in the world that honestly couldn't care less for our presence! Everything else can just be swept under the rug and forgotten.

Translated: Lets spend lots of money to stop whistle blower from disclosing our dodgey / shadey practices to the public and further prevent any future discussion of behaviors on the part of theose organizations that soon cannot be merntioned by name...

Any politician that votes for this needs his ass recalled... too bad the voters in general are stupidly oblivious to the implications to care...

Translated: Lets spend lots of money to stop whistle blower from disclosing our dodgey / shadey practices to the public and further prevent any future discussion of behaviors on the part of theose organizations that soon cannot be merntioned by name...

Any politician that votes for this needs his ass recalled... too bad the voters in general are stupidly oblivious to the implications to care...

It all goes back to that old quote..If a tree falls in the NSA headquarters and there isn't a whistleblower to tell the public, did it really happen?

Yes, let's not spend that money on fixing the real problem, overreach of the intelligence agency. Instead let's spend it to make damn sure that the rest of the world doesn't find out that the NSA is indeed eavesdropping on global communications, and friendly governments and corporations to the United States are all part of the problem.

What exactly does the Senate Intelligence Committee define as "legitimate" whistle-blowers?

From the Senate's bill:"Any employee of an agency who has authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action, shall not, with respect to such authority, take or fail to take a personnel action with respect to any employee of an intelligence community element as a reprisal for a disclosure of information by the employee to the Director of National Intelligence (or an employee designated by the Director of National Intelligence for such purpose), the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, the head of the employing agency (or an employee designated by the head of that for such purpose), the appropriate inspector general of the employing agency, a congressional intelligence committee, or a member of a congressional intelligence committee, which the employee reasonably believes evidences (1) a violation of any law, rule, or regulation; (2) mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety. "

So, in other words, a "legitimtate" whistleblower is someone who talks to a designated person in government or congress, not to a reporter.

Whistleblower. I don't think that word means what the Senate Intelligence Committee thinks it means.

"Any employee of an agency who has authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action, shall not, with respect to such authority, take or fail to take a personnel action with respect to any employee of an intelligence community element as a reprisal...

Wait, what? Shall not ... take or fail to take? So... all's good no matter what the hell they do as reprisal?

Edit: I *hope* they were shooting for something akin to Asimov's 1st law, but the intent seems to be lost in legalese.

I've had a little more time to think about the proposed "'protections' for whistle blowers" and have the following suggestion for an improved whistle-blowing process:

Why not have the FISA court implement a "whistle-blowing" site/process, perhaps along the lines of that suggested by the Ars Technica or Wired article that delineates how to go about leaking to the press? The FISA court is presently the only entity with nominal authority to rein in the excesses of the NSA and its ilk. If it had a means to receive and investigate the whistle-blowing complaints from NSA et. al. employees, it might just stand a chance of being able to do the job for which it was tasked.

It has become readily apparent to me that an outside authority, likely in the judiciary, will be necessary to keep the surveillance state in check.

What exactly does the Senate Intelligence Committee define as "legitimate" whistle-blowers?

From the Senate's bill:"Any employee of an agency who has authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action, shall not, with respect to such authority, take or fail to take a personnel action with respect to any employee of an intelligence community element as a reprisal for a disclosure of information by the employee to the Director of National Intelligence (or an employee designated by the Director of National Intelligence for such purpose), the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, the head of the employing agency (or an employee designated by the head of that for such purpose), the appropriate inspector general of the employing agency, a congressional intelligence committee, or a member of a congressional intelligence committee, which the employee reasonably believes evidences (1) a violation of any law, rule, or regulation; (2) mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety. "

So, in other words, a "legitimtate" whistleblower is someone who talks to a designated person in government or congress, not to a reporter.

Weird, so are we to assume these checks and balances weren't already in place? I recall Snowden stating one of his reasons to leak the material the way he did is because no one he was supposed to report the ethics violations to would or could do anything about it. Does this provision fix that somehow?

Of course not. The wording is in there so they can say "See, we have a procedure in place to deal with people who break the law or violate rules" Which of course if anybody were to go through channels would find as much response as a military person who reports a sexual assault to the "appropriate" superior. Which Snowden recognized and circumvented through a very adept maneuver.

I rest easier with the confidence that there really is no way to prevent "insider threat" without having everybody second-guess everybody else and hamstringing the organization into everybody being afraid to disagree.